


Fourteen Weeks

by respoftw



Series: Tumblr Prompts - Hawksilver edition [71]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captivity, Cuddles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash, Recovery, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 09:23:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4823663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone had assumed the worst when Pietro first flinched away from touch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fourteen Weeks

**Author's Note:**

> Combining two prompts from tumblr:
> 
> Punkrose1999:(either winterhawk or hawksilver) I would love love love a fic where either Bucky or Pietro was kept in captivity in Hydra for weeks (again) and when they finally escape and get back home, they just want a bunch of hugs and stuff for weeks afterward but are to afraid to initiate the contact. Clint notices and gives him (whichever one you choose) all the fluffy hugs and cuddles they could want. 
> 
> Anonymous:cuddly/needy pietro?

Everyone had assumed the worst when Pietro first flinched away from touch.

 

In the chaos of the rescue, the door to his too small cell having been torn open by the Hulk, as the entire roster of the Avengers descended upon him, as Wanda sobbed and reached out to pull him into a hug, Pietro had flinched.

 

'Flinch' was probably too mild a word for it actually; it was more like a full-body twitch, the entire length of him violently reacting to the thought of touch.

 

They had to sedate him to allow Dr Cho to look him over.

 

He probably shouldn't blame them for jumping to assumptions, assumptions of torture, of torment. They were trying to be respectful, giving him space, giving him time. Space to heal, time to learn that touch could bring more than pain, distance from the horrors of what had happened to him.

 

What none of them knew was that Pietro had been left alone in that too small cell for fourteen weeks. No contact with the outside world, even the food and water (the bare minimum needed to keep him alive) came only when he was sleeping.

 

Fourteen weeks of no human contact. Fourteen weeks of isolation and loneliness and a growing, gnawing hunger.

 

Fourteen weeks without touch.

 

Pietro missed it; _God he missed it_. After two weeks he would have done anything just to feel something more than the chill of stone beneath his skin, the strangely soulless touch of his own hands. After four weeks he wasn't above begging, broken pleas being yelled into the silence, not even sure anyone was listening. After fourteen weeks, the idea of being touched, of being held, of being comforted was so overwhelming that he hadn't known how to deal with it. So, assumptions had been made.

 

He hates himself a little bit for that.

 

Fourteen weeks had turned into fifteen, then sixteen. Pietro might no longer be a prisoner of HYDRA, but he still feels like he hasn't left that cell.

 

Asking for someone to touch him, to hold him, to comfort him isn't an option. He's an Avenger now, he'd seen them all bounce back from worse than this, from _actual_ torture, from _actual_ pain. How do you ask someone like that to give you a cuddle because you're a little bit lonely?

 

No, Pietro will be fine. He'll get through this himself. He slept in the bed rather than on the cold, hard bathroom floor last night. He's getting better.

 

*

 

Pietro is _not_ getting better and every day it's killing Clint a little bit more.

 

That awful day, sixteen weeks ago, when Pietro had fallen behind, disappeared, haunted his sleep. Hell, it haunted his waking hours too.

 

That day, two weeks ago, when they had found Pietro in a harshly lit, tiny, stone cell, curled up in the corner, arms wrapped around himself like a security blanket, was almost worse.

 

Seeing Pietro seize up at the touch of his own sister, watching as Wanda, who was sobbing the entire time, had to use her powers to sedate him, just so they could move him some place warm, some place safe. There was no escaping the fact that this was all his fault.

 

If he hadn't went back for that damn arrow, if he had insisted that Pietro went ahead with the others, that there was no need for him to help Clint look....he could have spared Pietro the pain. He could have spared them all the pain, not just of those fourteen devastating weeks, but the pain that was still being felt, even now.

 

Pietro had been sleeping on the bathroom floor, curled up into a tight ball in the corner. Clint knew this because he watched over him. Every night. The ceiling crawl space above Pietro's room had been his second home since the night they'd got him back, his need to see that the kid was OK, was whole, was alive had been too strong not to, regardless of whether he _should_.

 

So Clint knew that, no matter how much of a front Pietro was putting on during the day, he wasn't OK.

 

Last night though, last night Pietro had slept in his own bed. Without the blankets and still curled up as if to inhabit as little space as possible but still...it was progress.

 

Clint feels weirdly proud of him, especially when he sees Pietro help himself to some oatmeal the next morning, puttering about the quiet kitchen that no-one else besides them ever saw before 9am. For two weeks the kid had only eaten when someone had placed something in front of him. To see him not only sleeping in his own bed but getting his own food made something in Clint soar.

 

It's his only defence for forgetting about the team-wide edict that Pietro was not to be touched.

 

Clint pulls him in for a hug, that soaring something inside him demanding it, only for Pietro to freeze, body seizing up under his touch.

 

He barely has time to curse at his own stupidity, is a second away from pulling back and apologising, hoping that he hasn't fucked things up too badly, when Pietro starts sobbing and melts into his arms.

 

Clint hadn't expected this, hadn't planned for this, but he gathers Pietro close and holds him through everything. Pietro's sobs last for a long time, until both men are sitting on the kitchen floor – the strength gone from Pietro's legs yet his arms still cling desperately to Clint, his face pushed into the space where neck and shoulder meet.

 

Pietro is so obviously touch-starved that it doesn't come as much of a surprise when, after the sobs have petered out, he talks about his fourteen weeks in captivity. Not a surprise, no, but the reality of what Pietro had endured still hits Clint like a punch to the diaphragm.

 

It's all he can do to pull Pietro even closer and drop a protective kiss on his white curls.

 

“Please don't leave...not yet.” Pietro whispers the words into Clint's skin and his heart breaks for this beautiful, foolishly stubborn, stupidly brave kid.

 

“I'm here. I've got you. I'm not going anywhere.” Clint promises.

 

_Never again._

 


End file.
